attack of the inner emo

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My zombie attack surivial plan.

Although tere are several of these on the net, very few of them are adequate, let alone intellegent plans on how to get through the zombie D-day; and the next day, and the next. I, however, have constantly worked towards creating the ultimate plan, a survival guide that not only allows continued survival, but perhaps even an enjoyable one. Although some people have heard the plan, it constantly grows and renews itself, so I think its fair to set it up here.

Part 1; What we're facing.
There are as many different theories about the types of zombies as there are undead creatures themselves. It's simple to break them into 2 groups; shambling hordes of decomposing rot, and the fast, aggressive pain in the ass running undead. Surviving the two types works very differently, and your actual goals with both is different.

Slow, shambling hordes are wonderful for the apoclypse surviver. They're not to difficult to get by, easily distracted and very easy targets. Should you be caught up in an uprising of the shuffling dead, its easy just to take a site seeing tour cross country until you reach an uninfected location. Unfortunately, or super fast running hellbound are not so simple a matter. Since these suckers run much faster than you can, being spotted by one is a highling dangerous situation. Being spotted by a group is an agonizing death. Since they are capable of moving great distances overland quickly once the initial food source runs out, cross country ventures could result in an unfamilar, but still infected city. When these guys hit town, my advice is limited; theres not much you can do against millions of deathbrings hunting down YOU.

Its argueable how long it takes infection to occur, although all reports indicate that any open wound given to you by a zombie, esspecially with their teeth will eventually lead to another one of their ranks. A general rule of thumb that seems to be acurate is this; The smaller the wound, the long time taken to become undead, and the faster the zombie, the faster the disease spreads. Infection is not something that can be cured. Loved ones and friends who march in their ranks cannot be turned back. It's just impossible. However, should you find yourself facing infection, just take your weapon to yourself. Would you rather a relative be forced to gun down your monsterous corpse?

part 2; what happens.
With each type of zombie comes a different unfolding of events. The slow, shambling zombies rise from death can often be localized to a single city, because the poor blighters can't get away from their rising point before armies come and cut them down. Unfortunately, all too often a single escapee means another area of land infected, another culling of local residents. Since infection generally takes on quickly, its all too possible for an infected-yet-living person to flee across water, going to a different landmass before becoming a zombie, causing more hordes of undead to plague the world. These zombies present a much greater threat to all of humanity than the runners. While runners will find it impossible to cross bodies of water and plague more continents than the ones the initially inhabit, shamblers send their curse off with the living, to deliver across the water.
That said, runners present a much greater threat to people on their rising continent, as their capable of attacking and beating armed forces, using the sheer force of numbers gathered from their first city to bring down their enemy; and thus bring up their own forces. Find yourself watching news from sweating reporters with grainy helicopter footage about the armies ruinous defeat, and get yourself to coast quickly; others will be making the same journey, and you don't want to miss the boat.

part 3; how to survive.
All of this section deals with our old, frail friends who take over the earth at the pace of a snail. I'll explain why in the next.
If you see news about shambling horrors interstate, you might as well sit back and change the channel to Simpson's reruns. Armed forces better equipt than you will be preparing to bring down the undead hordes, and all you can do is chuck a coin or two in the tin for those people who collect money for relief efforts. However, find yourself in the uprising and you've got a different story. And that's where this guide will really come in handy. First, you need to get yourself a place to wait it out. Opinions here vary intensely; some highly reccomend large shopping malls for the multiple exits and massive food quantities, while others say barricading your own home is a safe set for success. Myself, I think you need something sneaky. A place you mightn't know well, but can easily get in and out of in multiple exits and can store (preferably already has) plenty of preservable foods and water. It'll change from person to place on where this is, but I can reccomend office buildings (preferable tall with more than one set of stairs. While zombies aren't likely to shuffle up to the 80th floor on the off chance theres some not quite rotten meat up there, if they do you want to get by them without a fuss, and that means another route.)

Now that you've decided one where to spend your zombie apoclypse, its time to collect your provisions. Now, less is better; you don't want to be running from uncertain death lugged down with the household couch strapped to your back. Here's the stuff I'll be collecting should the zombies hit the town. Firstly, a full on leather outfit. gloves, long sleeved jacket, a vest beneath it, pants.
Sturdy boots, perhaps steel capped to help your kick, and a full head covering motorbike helmet are wonderful choices for clothes. Try biting or scratching through leather and you'll have bloody fingers before a broken cowhide. It'll give you a great defence against the hordes teeth and nails, and I seriously reccomend it. Sacrificing manouverability is fine when its for survivability.
A sturdy, very high powered torch and matches are useful. The torch means you'll be able to move around at night, and should you hide out in the office building, it can be great fun swinging it around the city streets and watching the desperately hungry hordes of evil follow around the beam. Plus, intellegent, surviving people will track its sourced, and you may find yourself some company for the apoclypse, or at worst some target practice.
If you can find something like it, a sword or very long bladed knife will be good in taking down the minions of hell. You don't want to go rambo on them, but dispatching zombies in your path is a good idea. Of course, only removing the head or destroying the brain will nuetralize the zombie, so the longer the weapon, further away from the zombie you need to be, and thus the safer you are. At worst, Firmly attach a few blades to the end of a cricket bat, hockey stick or something of that nature. Take note of the firmly; it'd be less than perfect for that knife to come off and get lodged in your foot.
Guns are always popular, but unless your in the right country, it'll be hard to locate them, and ammo. Of course, if you can, go for it, but don't try to search them out too hard, or you'll waste time on other, more valuable searches.
Now, heres something you won't find on most surival lists, but is a useful tool; as many mobile phones as possible. Not brand new ones nicked from the vodaphone shop, but I'm talking about the older, "pre-loved" models. If you see someone phone, grab it. Odds are family and friends will eventually try calling it if their alive. While you can't keep them with you at all times, record messages on the answer machines of all you find detailing your hideout, where it is and what they should bring if they come. Put the message on, leave the phones stashed somewhere in your hideout you can check on 'em, and badda bim badda bom, eventually you'll have companions coming to join your surival group. However, remember to turn them all on silent; you don't want a hungry zombie following that sound.

Keep in mind with the shuffling horde, that unless you get unlucky and the whole world is brought down, your survival party need only be temporary. Eventually armies will be coming in to bring down those six feet under, and you don't want to be caught in the crosshairs. As soon as possible, make your hideout somewhere any human can tell holds, well, humans. Use big writing on the walls and roof, hang banners, whatever you can think of, do it. So long setting it up doesn't need too much time outside, and so long as it doesn't attract zombies (sounds you wouldn't normally here in a zombie infested city like music are out, and bright lights at night will bring them in like moths), it'll do the job. If an army man see's that, its possible that they'll hesitate before taking your head of your shoulders. Should you encounter an armed person, be sure to speak to them; in full english, no slurs. Don't slouch, don't mutter and defenitely don't lurch in to hug them. Seriously, mistakes have happened because of these things before. Once you've convinced them your othe living alive, be sure to prove your not injured. Otherwise you'll be quarntined with possible infected, and wouldn't it be a downer, surviving a zombie apoclyspe only to be eaten in the waiting room?

part 4; how to deal with running zombies.
This part ... is short. Why? There's almost nothing you can do. These buggers scream lots. If one see's you, they'll scream, others will scream, and you've got the olympians from hell on your heels. They move around alot, are more sensitive to where humans are then shufflers and are far more aggresive, which is saying something. Should you be stuclk in there attack, I can only offer this advice; get down what you wanted in life quickly. Tie off loose ends. Leave the insulting message on your dead bosses answering machine, finish off that book,go steal a copy of that movie and watch it before power goes down. Then, take off your head or something. Go out how you wanted. Just make sure your corpse isn't viable to become a living dead. The more people that do that, the more likely it is the plague is contained. Harsh, but true.


Well, theres my advice on surviving a zombie outbreak. It's different, but it works. Hope you keep this all in mind; one day it could prolong your lifespan by a few weeks.

RAGE.

I'm making this post now because I just got home from my weekly piano lesson and needed to vent frustration NOW, before I say something to someone that I'll regret later. Both my parents (and one of my brothers) smoke. Fairly heavily at that. They do it outside, not in the house, which is thoughtful of them. But it becomes fucking unbearable when they do it in the car. Which they do. Alot. And today, on the way home from that trip, mum asks me to get her ciggarettes out and her lighter from the bag. Yea, safeguarding your kids from picking up your habits gets kicked in the head somewhere there. So I do, and she lights it up, and after about 20 agonising seconds she rolls down her window slightly. And when I push my nose under my jumper, to muffle the smell just so little, she complains. "Don't do that. I know you don't like it, but to bad." FUCK YOU. I don't like it because IT KILLED MY FRIEND IN CASE YOU'D FORGOTTEN. I DO NOT WANT IT TO KILL ME EITHER. She goes on"Smoke rises so it goes out the window anyway." FUCKING IDIOT. The window is not the highest point in the car. THE AREA JUST ABOVE OUR HEADS IS YOU IDIOT. The smoke does not go out the window WHEN YOU HOLD THE CIGGARETTE JUST ABOVE MY FUCKING LAP. You berate me for not checking for cars on our home street, which is always fucking empty, because it is dangerous. LYING DOWN AND GOING TO SLEEP ON THAT ROAD IS LESS DANGEROUS THEN TAKING ONE OF YOUR FUCKING THINGS, OF WHICH YOU GO THROUGH 4 PACKS A WEEK.

I do not care if you people want to slowly kill yourselves and claim it is a stress relief. I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU FREAKS, BUT HASTENING MY DEATH IS NOT A RELIEF TO STRESS. DO NOT DRAG ME TO THE GRAVE WITH YOUR SICK HABBITS.

Colors.

I just know that I'm never going to be satisfied with the colorscheme, and that every time I come here I'll end up spending more time fiddling with it then I do making a post, but thats more my fault then anyone elses.

Today's post is more in honor of me setting up shifts for work at mcdonalds then anything else. It's in footscray, true, which is meant to be like, where druggies go when they've hit rock bottom for druggies, but hey, I live there too, and I walk past a partly demolished pub (Well, a truck drove into it, but it still did a fair bit of damage) that is used by squatters and whore's. I can deal with serving these people dinner. Plus, my most super awesomeest friend every, Lucky, works their, and I'm amazingly glad I'll get to see her more often again, since after she got to old for band our only regular contact has been through the web. And I have a feeling that me getting the job after months of downtime is due to more then a little intervention on her part, and she's already helped me so much with it that I am grateful enough to kiss her, were she in the same room as me and were I not crippling shy in RL social events.

that seems to short for a blog post. Bugger me. Well, I was feeling all proud for restarting this thing, then I looked at it and it said "Last post 5 days ago!" like some horrible accusation. That reminded me not to let it die quiet so quickly this time, so I'll try to be nice and ramble for a few more occassion yet. I mean, ideally I wouldn't be such a lazy bastard and would update it to a schedule of some kind, but fuck, I'm not Yahtzee, this isn't fullyramblomatic and I am in possession of a little thing called an attention span. I mean a little thing when I say it folks.

Final thoughts; My brother has now got more of his tattoo done. Hm, this is going to more then a fleeting final thought kiddies. Its a coy? fish, or something. Japanese, he says it symbolishes strength and endurance. I say it symbolises forgienness, and combined with the southern cross on his shoulderblades it symbolises stupidity. Then he hits me. It hurts. Theres still like 3 more sessions before it is finished, to get all the color in. He already has The previously mentioned southern cross, his year of conception on his foot (Yea, makes plenty of sense.), and a man with a lawmower just above his groin. Okay, that one is amusing. I think the tattoos are a foolish thing to get now, more because supposedly later on he'll think about what a dick move it was, but hey, it's his skin, not mine. Okay, I'm done. No one is allowed to implode, as that'll be how I die, okay?

This is the area that scares me.

Making up a title is harder then writing the blog, damnit. *ahem.* Er ... Blame Aleatz again. Seeing her ubdate so often like a little busy person made me feel lazy, and being bored overcame lazyness and resulted in this. I won't make any promises I can't keep this time, so I'll may update again after this one. Anyway, another reason I didn't update was my layout looks shit and I suck to bad to find a new one. Maybe, now that I've gone and said it like that. ... Perhaps.

Well, I have nothing to write about now, but I figured a topic would come to mind after I started. And it did, sorta. Glasses. See, I wear glasses (and if you didn't know this I must ask where your brain is), and I like them. They're efficent, good at what they do and generally only cause me pain on really hot or really cold days, when the metal hot/cold burns the sides of my head. Other then that though, they're good little chaps. However, I do have a fair few pet peeves with glasses in general, which, since I'm like that, I'll share with you.

1) Dirt. Not dirt from the ground dirt, but mess nonetheless. My eyes, being fucked up and a can of soup besides, need fucking massive glasses. I mean, ground, compressed and still bigger then what your nanna wears massive. So they sit on top of my nose. Too low and they flop right off. Meaning every single time I blink, it leaves a smear. Being blind and also used to it, I don't notice them, but other people do, and constantly complain about my glasses being "dirty." One memoriable teacher from primary school said that I must smush them up in my weetbix every morning to get them so bad. (Oh yes, sir, I haven't forgotten. And the lego set you confiscated, AKA stole? Oh, I remember. I remember it all.) So, I feel the need to clean them often. You know how many blinks it takes for them to get messy again? I do. I counted. 1. 1 blink, and were back where we started.

2) Nerd. Why is it that because I wear glasses I'm instantly labeled nerd? Oh, I know theres countless other things, like body posture, speech mannerisms, facial expressions, blah de blah, but its the glasses that seal the deal. I know. For the 4 months I wore contacts, I was the cats pajamas. With strangers at least, who'd never met me before and thus didn't know of my prolific knowledge on the subject of everything and your mum. So glasses get me labeled as a nerd, and getting labeled as a nerd gets me, for lack of a more pathetic term, bullied. I hate that term. It makes it sound like bullying is something successful, something that does in fact make me scared to go to school and see my "oppressors" who "make my life hell." HAHAHAHAHA. I relish in their "tormet." One kid in particular, until recently (Beware, a tanget develops!). a fat one. I say that as a understatment. This kid is ... morbidly obese. And to top it off, he's in year 7. thats right, an oversized year 7 is "bullying" a year 11. He tried so hard, too. But he screwed up bad. Most of you may not no this, but three weeks ago on thursday we put my dog down. That was the day before school holidays. The next day, fatty followed me home. He had the audacity to stalk me. When I got of the train station near my house, I made it clear to him not to try it again. In short, I grabbed him by the throat, pushed him up against the wall, and held him their until he was purple and crying. I'm not a violent person, but bugger me if I'm going to roll over and take shit like that from crap like him. Thats not the end of the story though; in short, at the start of this term he saw me and said (Quiet visible bruised around the neck and standing out of arms reach. Like it would help his lard ass.) That his "friends" were going to beat me up. I reminded him I lived in Footscray (Think ratty, then double it. To get to the train station I walk past a pub that closed down and is now home to some not so friendly squatters.) and that if any of them tried something I'd kill them. Oh, and I punched him in the face, too. Since then I've been carrying around a chair leg (Hollow metal pole, bassically) in my bag, just in case. More on it, should it develop. (Backing up a few kilometres.)

3) Taking. What is with people taking my glasses and trying them on? It pisses me off. Sitting there, minding my own bussiness, and suddenly a hand reaches from the ether of my peripheral vision and yanks them off my face. Then some hooting voice asks how they look with them on, says I must be really blind because the glasses are so fuzzy for them, and then complains about having a headache because of them and blames me for it. sigh.

4) They caused me to write a list on a blog I hadn't updated in 4 months. See how many reasons I have?

Eh, I'm done saying stuff for now. Blah blah blah, glasses are practical but sometimes annoying, fat year 7's pushed me past my breaking point, I have a chair leg in my bag, my socks smell funny. Bye for now.

Equinox is a very old, fairly simple game. It's split into two parts. On the overworld, you never actually battle, but instead go down the different entrances to the dungeons, or get into fights with big bat monsters and orges that look like gorillas and jump like cowboys on trampolines. In dungeons, you run around throwing various weapons and casting various spells at various enemies, to collect twelve shiny purple balls that will allow you to fight some form of boss that is very meanly using its spirit to block you from continuing your journey on the overworld, making the shape of a cloud with angry eyes on a birdge and utterly confident that you will never find and destroy its body, despite the fact that the last three bosses before it said the exact same thing.

Okay, I'm giving it a tough rap here; the graphics are clean (mostly), the music is nice (when it plays) and I love the adorable little scream your character makes when you walk him into a spiky ball, or get him run over by a ghost, or one of the many other dangers to a warrior as fragile as antique china teacups. Theres also a story, but only on the back of the box and at the end of the game. Supposedly your character dad got imprisioned by an evil witch who hates him or something, so it falls to you to save him and also the rest of the world for some undefined reason. Oh, and you have some harp and the first 5 bosses have all been bullies and stolen the strings, and you want them back, darn it!

At the beginning of the game, you have no weapons, no spells and no harp strings. So, you jump down the nearest dungeon hole and soon get a piddling throwing dagger, and a neat heal spell that you'll be using one hell of a lot throughout the game. Oh, and damage is a bit weird in this game; when you get hurt and your character does his little scream, he then explodes and his turban floats into the air. Then he appears back at the door of the room, with all your hard work their undone and his health half a ball smaller. You die quiet alot, and having to redo a room fall of twisters and blobs in particular can get hellaciously frustating, esspecially since all the magic you use before you die remains drained afters, resulting in several annoying forays back to the overworld so you can slaughter some innocent giant bats and get magic potions for your plundering.

The hazards in the game really have only 6 varietes, so here they are.
Gates; Grey things that lift up, then fall down. If an enemy is under it, it bounes up and down off their head with a metalic tink sound. If your under, you get adorable scream and flung back to die. Go figure.
Ghosts; These things float around, bouncing off walls and anything else in the room except you. Die quickly, but if there are several fast ones you can get overrun.
Guards; they're armoured all over except the back. They must have been hit by the greatest con artist/salesman to have walked the Equinox. fairly easy to kill, but some of the more advanced ones change direction randomly.
Twisters; Spin, spin, spin. Get dizzy and stop for a while. When paused, they're blucky, naked men with frog heads. When spinning, they're a coloured twister. They can be seriously annoying as they move faster then your characters lesiurely stroll pace, which is his only option. They also change direction lots. Throw things from a distance.
Blobs; Small, your weapons fly right over them. Wait till they jump to attack, or use Zap instead. Annoying.
Spiky balls of horror; Your greatest nemesis! Spiky balls of horror do not need to move, they are so awesome and mighty. Simply brushing an errant sleeve upon these results in a cataclysmic cream exactly like all the other times he does it, but somehow much worse. They lie in packs, or hide behind tall pillars snickering. Spiky balls of horror also clump underneath invisible platforms you must navigate, form small but unjump-overable walls to frustrate you and occasionally will lie at the end of a sliding floor, giggling as you helplessly fly towards it. More dangerous then any boss, as the Spiky ball of horror cannot die.

There are also some bosses, but most of their tactics are "lets slide around the floor using various projectiles and turn redder and redder as we get killed!". Spiky balls of horror far outclass them. Anyone, time for ratings!

Graphics: 7/10 Aside from some occasional graphic jumps (Your head suddenly getting bored of your shoulders and the like) it looks very neat. It also lost points for things being hard to determine as part of the forground or middleground. Do I jump to the left, or straight down? ... nope, it appears it should have been straight down.

Sound: 6/10 Frankly, it would have done much better if the dungeons were discounted. As you wander through them, its as if the music gets selfconcious, and it stops for anywhere between 10 seconds and half an hour. But boss battles sound cool, bats and ogres sound cool, when playing the dungeon music suits the mood, and sound effects like the afformentioned addorable scream, the metalic tink and also the "ping!" Whenever you eat an apple to see the word delicious appear are all cool.

Gameplay: 7/10 Ehh... its iffy. Very doom like, in a way. Red key! Blue key! White key! Greeeen keeeeey! Color coded keys, damnit! So its lots of exploring different rooms. But then theres weird fights between you and a giant collum made of different blocks, that becomes awesome when the last one grows swords to spin around with, the odd "You can only walk diagonal" thing and the assaults by spiky balls of horror. Depending on what you like, it could go to 4 or 9.

Replayability: 3/10 Well, you win. Cool. Want to explore everything? Nah, you already did while searching for the last of the 12 shiny purple orbs and a green key in the dungeons. Want to get the ultimate weapon? There isn't one, every weapon upgrade can just be thrown more often or flies faster through the air then the last. There are only 5 spells, 2 of which do the same thing. After you win, its a sign your done with the game. Pack it up and move on.

So, its an okay game. Good for wasting away 20-30 hours depending on how resolved you are before eventually giving up at the swamps or throwing your control through the screen at the "Spiky ball of horror end of game gathering party". Fun, I suppose. But in a non committed, "I'm content but not elated" sort of way. Not whee fun, but eh fun.

Well, that dayily post scheme lasted ages. Hm. Propably shouldn't have tried setting that up when my home computer is a molten pile of crap. Expect to read that complaint alot until it is replaced. I have to deal with it, SO DO YOU! *cackles* Ahem. Well, maybe I'll just go for 5 a week. Possibly 4, depending on how lazy I get.

I can't think of what to write here, so I'll just go with whatever comes to mind. Right now I'm at school, on a very, very cold day. So I'll start with that. My school is called CBC, or Christian Brothers College if you like talking. Well, its a Jesus loving establishment, obviously, and the only reason I came here was because my brothers did. Given the choice, I'd have gone for Footscray city, which is much closer to home, has no uniform and is cheaper. My parents seem to think that larger class sizes mean its a terrible place, but if they had a day of lessons here I think I could go there. It's amusing actually, when I'm doing badly they threaten to send me there. Last time it happened I snapped and screamed at them to send me there, because my best friend went, and if they think she's going to end up working for a fast food joint for the rest of her life I'd be happy to do it beside her. Now they don't mention the place.

CBC is like most high schools; badly funded, crappy facilities, and some good teachers mixed in among a million bad. Its an all boys school, and of course for a nerd like me that can spell trouble. I'm lucky in that I have two older brothers with a penache for violence, I suppose. It keeps me fit enough to at least fight back against people trying to walk over me. Across the road from CBC is an all girls school, PCW. (Presentation college windsor.) In years 11 and 12 (VCE, here) students will go between schools so they can do their elected subjects without timetables clashing. I have half my subjects there. Other then the students, its a much better school then ours. Their lot is as bad as ours though.

Anyway, I think that consititutes a fair post. Now the bells going for home room. I'll leave you lot to your own devices. See you tommorow, or if I'm really bored, after school today.